Civil rights group moves SC for striking down CAA

A civil rights group has approached the Supreme Court with a plea to quash the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 as unconstitutional for violating fundamental rights, international covenants and being discriminatory against Muslims.

It also questioned validity of the Citizenship Amendment Act, 2003 which created different scenarios like any child born after July 1, 1987 and before December 3, 2004, if none of his parents is the citizen of India has no right to citizenship and children born to a couple one of whom is an illegal migrant is not entitled to the status of citizenship by birth. The plea contended that it created a class of stateless children.

NGO Association for Protection of Civil Rights, and its secretary Rafeek Ahmed filed their petition through advocate Ejaz Maqbool, contending the provisions of the Act were discriminatory and directed against the Muslims on the basis of their religion and place of birth.

The classification has been made whimsically and capriciously, ignoring the fact that in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, Muslim minority sects like Ahmadiyyas, Shias and Hazaras have also been victims of persecution. Further, no rationale has been provided to exclude the victims of religious persecution from other neighboring countries like Tamilian Hindus from Sri Lanka and Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, it contended.

The NGO also claimed if the provisions of the CAA were operationalised followed up with the National Register for Citizens, several undocumented Indians would become stateless.

On December 18, the top court sought a response from the Union government on a batch of 60 petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Act but refused to grant any stay on the statute, which has triggered massive protests across the country. It also asked the Centre to ensure wide publicity to aims and objects of the amended Act in view of confusion among the people.